Kerry Tombs - The Worcester Whisperers

‘Yes, what do you want? We’re full up. We got no rooms, at present; plenty of regular lodgers.’

‘We are not after a room-’ began Crabb.

‘Then why are you wasting my time?’ growled the face.

‘We are policemen, madam, investigating the disappearance and death of one of your lodgers, a Mister Nicholas Evelyn. Can we come in?’ asked Ravenscroft smiling.

‘Dead, you say! Evelyn dead! God bless us all! You best come in then,’ replied the old woman opening the door wider. The two policemen stepped into the darkened hallway where Ravenscroft found himself speaking to an elderly stout woman with a red complexion and thinning untidy hair, who was wearing a dirty apron, a pair of slippers and a dress, that he estimated had clearly seen better days.

‘Dead,’ she repeated.

‘I’m afraid so. His body was recovered from the Severn yesterday. He had been in the water for several days. I am sorry if this has come as a shock to you. You are…?’ asked Ravenscroft.

‘Mrs Glover. Mr Glover passed on twenty-seven years ago, he did.’

‘I am sorry to hear it,’ said Crabb.

‘Bit late now!’

‘Can you tell me how long Mr Evelyn had lived here?’ asked Ravenscroft.

‘He were ’ere, when old Glover bought the place thirty-five years ago,’ muttered the old woman, shuffling further along the hallway.

‘Did he always have the same rooms?’

‘On top floor. Never wanted to move.’

‘I wonder whether we might examine Mr Evelyn’s rooms?’ asked Ravenscroft.

‘Don’t know why you want to do that for. Thought that churchman had done that before you. He didn’t find anything.’

‘Yes, I believe the Dean, The Reverend Touchmore, did call to see if Mr Evelyn was ill, shortly after his disappearance. Tell me, Mrs Glover, was Mr Evelyn ever in the habit of receiving visitors in his rooms?’

The old woman thought for a moment. ‘No, he never had no visitors. You best come this way then, if you want to see his room.’

‘No one at all?’

‘Never. No one ever called on him. Not in the last thirty-five years anyway.’

‘He was a man who kept very much to himself then?’ said Ravenscroft following behind the old woman, who began to haul herself up the stairs.

‘Suppose so.’

‘Do you know whether Nicholas Evelyn had any relatives at all?’

‘None that I knows about,’ replied the landlady, becoming short of breath.

‘Do you know where he came from, before he came to Worcester that is?’ asked Ravenscroft observing the peeling wallpaper on the walls.

‘Don’t know. I never asked where he came from.’

‘When you supped together, did he ever say anything about his past, or about people he knew?’

‘Don’t provide supper. Lodgers look after themselves.’ Mrs Glover paused on the landing, holding the side of the banister whilst taking in deep breaths.

‘Are you all right?’ enquired a concerned Ravenscroft.

‘This is as far as I go. I can’t manage the other two flights, on account of me leg. Follow the stairs up, as far as you can. Door ain’t locked.’

‘Thank you, Mrs Glover, I’m sure we can manage,’ replied Crabb.

Ravenscroft and Crabb made their way up the two remaining flights of stairs, until they reached a small landing, with a door facing them. ‘Our Nicholas Evelyn was a man who liked to climb up stairs,’ said Ravenscroft pushing open the door.

The room in which the two men now found themselves, was of an untidy but compact nature. A single bed ran the length of one wall, with an attic window above, which looked out across the crowded tenement buildings of Worcester. A table and chair were situated in the centre of the room, the former being littered with old books and papers; a further few books were to be found on a small bookcase near the door.

‘So this is where our librarian spent his evenings, in this lonely uninviting room, at the top of an old rambling lodging-house, in the centre of Worcester,’ said Ravenscroft beginning to examine the books on the table.

‘You would have thought he would have wanted to move somewhere better,’ said Crabb.

‘One thing I have learned about our friend, is that he was a creature of habit. It would have been completely out of character for him to have disturbed the equilibrium of his daily routine. I suppose the room also suited him, being near his place of work, and the view above his neighbours must have meant that he could have kept an eye on everything that was happening below him. Have a look through those papers on the desk, Crabb.’

‘What are we looking for, sir?’

‘I don’t really know at this stage — just anything which is out of the ordinary; something that does not perhaps fit in with everything else. His books seem dry fare, mainly medieval history, and books about old books and manuscripts,’ said Ravenscroft walking across the room to where another half-open door led into an even smaller room. ‘This must be where he washed and dressed,’ he said, observing the bowl and stand, and the few clothes hanging on the rail.

‘These papers seem to be mainly about books and manuscripts,’ said Crabb.

‘Go through them and see if there is any mention of the Whisperie, ’ instructed Ravenscroft, examining the contents of a small chest of drawers. ‘It looks as though our librarian only had one change of clothes. He didn’t appear to eat much either, just the remains of some bread on this plate, and a piece of hard cheese.’

‘Perhaps he had his food brought in?’ suggested Crabb. ‘Or he dined out a lot.’

‘More likely he just bought food back to his rooms when he needed it. Give me half those papers.’

The two men spent the next few minutes going through the librarian’s papers, before finally Ravenscroft threw them down on the table, a look of frustration across his face. ‘Nothing! No mention of the Whisperie . No letters or anything of a personal nature. Don’t you find that strange, Crabb? We have here a man who appears to have had no friends, and no past. A man, in fact, whose life was the same from one day to the next.’

‘Not my kind of life,’ said Crabb.

‘Nor mine. It is as if he found comfort from his drab, ordered life. Do you know what I think, Crabb? I think something occurred in his life a long time ago, something which was so dramatic and upsetting, that it drove him to this life, where he could forget all that which had happened to disturb him.’

‘He could have been engaged to a lady perhaps, and she jilted him at the altar, or she died shortly after they were married?’

‘It could have been something like that, but our Evelyn does not look to have been the marrying type. Whatever it was, he buried it underneath these layers of order and drabness, where he could feel secure and cut off from the world. But then something happened one day, quite recently I would think, that threatened to disturb all this — something which reminded him of his past, and drove him to commit an act that was to be totally out of keeping with his character, and was to lead to his eventual death.’

‘That is all very profound, sir, if you don’t mind my saying so,’ remarked a puzzled Crabb.

‘What was it that drove him out of this room that night, to commit such an outrage? If only we could discover the answer to that question, then we might be able to find out who killed him and eventually recover the book,’ said Ravenscroft pacing up and down the room.

‘That is true, sir.’

‘Well, Crabb, it does not seem as though we will find the answer here, much though I would have hoped. Best make our way downstairs and pay our respects to Mrs Glover once more before we leave. I find this room rather sad and oppressive the longer I have to remain in it,’ said Ravenscroft, moving away from the table, and suddenly catching his boot on the edge of the waste-paper bucket. ‘There are some pieces of torn paper in here. Tip them out on to the desk,’ he instructed, looking down at the contents of the container.